Page:Fables of Aesop and other eminent mythologists.djvu/91

Rh how now Friend (ays the As) How comes This about? Only the Chance of the War, ays the Other: I was a Soldiers Hore, you mut know; and my Mater carry'd me into a Battel, where I was Shot, Hack'd, and Maim'd; and you have here before Your Eyes the Catatrophe of My Fortune.

are to Gather from hence, that people would never Envy the Pomp and Splendour of Greatnes, if they did but confider, either the Cares and Dangers that go along with it, or the Bleings of Peace, and Security in a Middle Condition. No man can be truly Happy, who is not every Hour of his Life prepar'd for the wort that can befall him. Now This is a State of Tranquility never to be Attain'd, but by keeping perpetually in our Thoughts the Certainty of Death, and the Lubricity of Fortune; and by Delivering our elves from the Anxiety of Hopes and Fears.

It falls Naturally within the Propect of This Fiction to Treat of the Wickednes of a Preumptuous Arrogance, the Fate that Attends it; The Rife of it; and the Means of either Preventing, or Suppreing it; The Folly of it; The Wretched and Ridiculous Etate of a Proud man, and the Weaknes of That Envy that is Grounded upon the mitaken Happines of Humane Life.

If a body may be Allow'd to Graft a Chritian Moral upon a Pagan Fable, what was it but Pride and Arrogance that fit threw Lucifer out of Heaven, and afterward, Adam out of Paradie? [Ye hall be as Gods] was the Temptation; an Impotent, and a Preumptuous Affectation of Vain-Glory was the Sin; and a Malediction Temporal and Eternal was the Punihment. Now if the Charms of an Unruly Ambition could o far prevail upon the Angels Themelves in their Purity; and upon Mankind in a State of Innocence, how Strict a Guard ought we then to keep upon our elves, that are the Children of diobedience, and bring the feeds of This Deadly Vanity into the World with us in our very Veins?

It is highly Remarkable, that as Pride, and Envy are the Two Paions, that above All Others give the Greatet Trouble to the Sons of Men, o are they likewie the Firt Emotions of the Mind that we take Notice of in our Approaches to the Exercie of our Reaon. They begin with us in the Arms of our Nures, and at the very Breats of our Mothers; for what's the meaning of All the Little Wrangles and Contentions ele, which Child all be mot made off; or which Baby hall have the Gayer Coat? So that Thee Affections are in truth, Connatural to us, and as We our elves grow up and Gather Strength, o do They, and pas Inenibly from our Inclinations into our Manners. Now the Corruption mut needs be Strong, where Humane Frailty trikes in o Early with it, and the Progres no les Mortal, where it is uffer'd to go on without Control: For what are all the Extravagances of the Leudet Life, but the more